INTERCULTURAL INCOMMENSURABILITY AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF CHINESE MEDICINE: THE CASE OF ACUPUNCTURE

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INTERCULTURAL INCOMMENSURABILITY AND THE
GLOBALIZATION OF CHINESE MEDICINE THE CASE OF
ACUPUNCTURE

• Robert N. St. Clair, Walter E. Rodríguez, Andrew
  M. Roberts and Irving G. JoshuaUniversity of
  Louisville

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Thomas S. Kuhn

• Structure of Scientific Revolutions

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Paradigm Shifts
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Features of Paradigm Shifts
Normal Science The golden age of science Old journals reject papers that do not confirm normal science views
Periods of Crises Loss of belief in the old paradigm Journals accept a wide range of articles that attempt to repair and revise the normal science model
Revolutionary Science Community of scientists shift to the new emerging paradigm New journals reflect the revolutionary changes in science. Eventually older journals are taken over by the leaders of the new paradigm
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THE COMMENSURABILITY OF DIVERGENT PARADIGSMS

• Can the Acupuncture practice qualify as a
  scientific paradigm?
• The transition from normal science to revolution
  science must share a common tradition
  acupuncture does not.
• Acupuncture is outside of the western tradition
  of science
• Basic challenge Why does acupuncture work?

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Acupuncture Theory
The World of Dao
Philosophy of Yin Yang
Practice of Acupuncture

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THE WESTERN MEDICINE PARADIGM
Germ Theory Four Kinds of Disease
Infectious Disease
Nutritional Disease
Molecular Genetic
Auto Immune Disease
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PARADIGMATIC INCOMMENSURABIITY

• Western science functions in a context of
  reductionism, linearity, and causality.
• Individual events are isolated from their larger
  and more holistic complex of interactions and
  subjected to the scientific method.
• Hypotheses are posed regarding these isolated
  events and experiments are designed to either
  prove or disprove these hypotheses.
• From this practice, laws or principles are
  established and theories are formulated that
  verify and predict those very principles. It is a
  quantitative science.

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PARADIGMATIC INCOMMENSURABIITY

• Chinese science, on the other hand, is a
  qualitative science.
• It is holistic in that it is derived from a
  context of inclusion, concurrence, and induction.
  
• Events are seen as initially interconnected they
  influence each other.
• These events are studied in context with it
  interrelationships and counter influences.
• Upon observing the phenomena, laws are
  established based on how these events are
  experienced.
• Are these two systems incommensurate?
• The challenge is that they both make successful
  conclusions about the same phenomena.

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Concluding Remarksby American Scientists

• They cannot understand why the Chinese felt no
  compunction to quantify phenomena.
• They cannot relate to the qualitative measures
  (Yin, Yang, wuxing, and bagua) used by the
  Chinese philosophers.
• They are not comfortable with the metaphor of
  the path or the way and prefer to seek causal
  relationships of a different nature.

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Concluding Remarks by Revolutionary Scientists

• The most promising bridge between these two
  paradigms can be found in the field of
  bioelectromagnetism (BEM) which is the study of
  the subtle electromagnetic fields that underlie
  life processes.
• BEM is a viable research paradigm in Europe and
  it is not widely investigated within the United
  States (Selden and Becker, 1987) where medical
  treatments are largely based on drug therapies
  and surgical interventions.
• Lakhovsky (1992) investigated the
  interrelationships between high-frequency
  electromagnetic fields and living things. In
  this book, he asked the question What is life?
  
• His response is that life is the harmony of
  multiple radiations which react upon one another.
  

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Science of Bioelectromagnetism

• Lakhovsky (1992), A Russian scientist, went on to
  ask What is disease? His answer was that
  disease was the oscillatory disequilibrium of
  cells and that this disequilibrium originated
  from external causes.
• Lakhovsky explained that living things receive
  and emit electromagnetic radiations. It is the
  exchange of these energies between life forms
  constitutes electromagnetic communication.
• Pressman (1970) argued that it is electromagnetic
  radiation that enables living things to sense
  information about the environment, facilitate and
  control within the organism, and communicate
  between living things.
• Popp and Becker(1988) referred to this energy
  forms as biophotons and explained how they
  regulated many physiological functions such as
  growth, maturation, cell differentiation,
  enzymatic activity, and immune system functions.

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Resonance Model of Life

• These electromagnetic fields within the human
  body is seen as a model of resonance in which
  particles move harmoniously through an
  electromagnetic field
• This research is reminiscent of quantum physics
  which is based on the principle that all parts of
  the universe are connected to each other and are
  in communication with all of its parts.

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Final Remarks

• The ancient Chinese description of Qi and its
  parthways and accumulations in the body closely
  correlate with research in BEM.
• The acupuncture system with its meridians is
  largely based on such electromagnetic energies.

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Final Remarks - 2

• The globalization of medicine has taken an
  interesting turn. Classical Chinese medicine has
  made its journey outside of the Middle Kingdom
  and into the medical practice of the western
  nations.
• One of the major problems with this transition
  had to do with paradigmatic incommensurability.
• Even though the languages involved were different
  and even though the medical practices differed
  substantially, the two models were found to be
  commensurable because of scholars who understood
  the significance of the Chinese tradition and its
  implications for BEM research.
• One is reminded that when paradigms overlap, they
  become partially compatible and their findings
  can be made more commensurable with each other.

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Therefore

• Such commensurability, however, would not have
  occurred if such peripheral practices were not
  tolerated by the core medical sciences. Even in
  the sciences, Tolerance has its virtues.